What I Want From Newhammer

Hello everyone! SaltyJohn from TFG Radio here to give you a run down of what I want from Newhammer! This is strictly my opinion based off of what GW has said and ideas I have for what would be cool, so feel free to jump in and share your thoughts, too!

Unless you live off the grid, in which case you’re not reading this anyway, you no doubt are aware a new edition of 40k is arriving… Soon? So let’s wish list.

First let’s get it out of the way now, I am truly excited for a new edition of 40k. As one of the head judges at LVO I have been dying for a new, hopefully simpler, edition. I wished from the beginning for something along the lines of Age of Sigmar and a 100% reboot of the game. Meaning on launch I wanted a new core rulebook and all old books: codices, supplements, FW, etc to be out and replaced same day. Full blown, burn it down, kill it with fire, and from the ashes let a new edition rise. It would appear that’s what we are getting! Check out the FAQ GW put out if you haven’t already. What isn’t known though are the specifics. So here is what I want from the new dawn of Warhammer 40,000.

Thank you GW, from the bottom of my heart, thank you.

Simpler Rules: Age of Sigmar has 4 pages of rules. I doubt GW could whittle down 40k to 4 pages but anything is better than the monstrous, and often self-conflicting, tome of rules we have now. Getting rid of things that have caused head aches for editions on end like the charts. Oh so many charts GW, why? I really hope that units have simple to hit rolls, to wound rolls, no more Str v Toughness chart, or to hit chart, or vehicle damage chart!

An overhaul of the way a turn works would be nice too. Perhaps how combats are resolved similar to Age of Sigmar where the players take turns deciding which combats to resolve. That adds another element of strategic thinking that current 40k sometimes lacks. On the topic of that how cool would it be if Initiative were gone? What if everyone swings simultaneously but the unit that charges goes first, like Hammer of Wrath but all your attacks, and speed in combat is shown through number of attacks instead. For example guardsmen get 1 attack in combat but Marines, who are faster, get 2 and Eldar get 3, so on and so forth but the models all attack at the same time. Meaning a model with a powerfist gets a maximum of 1, maybe 2 attacks, but doesn’t get screwed over by initiative nonsense.

Each model/unit having their own movement characteristics would allow for greater tactical decisions in game while also getting the game to look more like the fluff. I know I used the dreaded “F” word, but too bad. The rules for each unit being included on their specific sheet/cards like in Age of Sigmar would be a welcome change as well. It would be great to see units like Tactical Squads, Guardsmen, Guardians, Necron Warriors, Ork Boyz etc move differently and have more flavorful and unique rules just to them. While maintaining a simpler core set of rules.

Vehicles: I really hope vehicle damage gets a total overhaul. I would love to see them treated more like large creatures are treated in Age of Sigmar where they have large numbers of wounds and they degrade in ability over time depending on the number of wounds on them. It would be great if say a Rhino had 10 wounds, after 3 the stormbolter stops working, after 6 it moves half distance etc. No more instantly exploding land raiders. That would be really nice, can you see it now? Tables with Land Raiders delivering Terminators into the heart of the traitors and xenos of the galaxy? Glorious.

Terminators/Heavy Infantry: On the topic of Terminators… Wouldn’t it be amazing if newhammer brought back Heavy Infantry as something worth it’s weight in points on the table top? 2 wound terminators, Nobs with proper costing, Paladins that were point efficient again, the list goes on and on. I would love to see a move to mechanics that allow some of the most iconic units in 40k like Terminators become viable again. This is a constantly ground axe with those of us at TFG Radio, whether it’s Travis on the podcast, or me all over the place a change would be welcome and if Age of Sigmar is any indication it is possible to make the different classifications of Infantry good again. Together GW we can make Terminators great again, I believe in you.

Psychic Phase: Something I am looking forward to is a better psychic phase. This isn’t out of hate, surprisingly enough, but out of frustration as someone who played psyker heavy lists for much of 7th edition. Whether it was Conclave dependent Gladius/Wolftide or taking a stab at Magnus and company, I struggled to enjoy the psychic phase. I would love to see GW take the psychic phase out, or roll it into somewhere else, and then stream line it to a point where it is both an effective part of the game but manageable and less time consuming.

Monsters/Big Models: 6th and 7th were often referred to as the Monstrous Creature editions. Whether it was the Nurgle Flying Circus of 6th or the Wraithknight/Riptides/Stormsurges on every damn table at LVO of 7th, the MCs were everywhere. Now, that’s not in and of itself bad. What was bad was that the MC love didn’t extend to all MCs across the board. I would really like to see the MC rules reworked to allow Tyranids to be good again, mainly to see the Carnifex and other big bugs have rules that both make sense, and are balanced in power. It was awesome seeing these big models all over the tables of 40k, it was sad to see so few Tyranids. I don’t even play Tyranids and I felt bad for them.

Tyra-what now?: On the topic of Tyranids it would be great to see Newhammer bring the viability of all the armies back. Tyranids, Necrons, Dark Eldar, Orks all suffered and languished in 7th edition in many ways. I really hope that not only will balance come from the new edition of 40k but there is a Renaissance for these armies in the same way Chaos Space Marines benefited from the Traitor Legion/Wrath of Magnus Renaissance of the final days of 7th.

It’s ok Guilliman, we all forgot they existed too.

Time and Mission Design: If you follow TFG Radio on Youtube or their Blog, you’ll know I was pretty fed up with the 40k missions after the 2017 LVO. Through no fault of the ITC or FLG, the event really showed me just how bad the mission design for 40k was and how badly a change was needed. I like the Age of Sigmar missions for Match Play quite a bit. They are less dependent upon getting the last turn, please god let there be no random game length in newhammer, and several use the First Past the Post mission mechanic. Age of Sigmar missions also seem to play a lot faster in their Match Play set up which, as both a judge and player, I am excited to see get transferred over to 40k. The missions in 40k really hadn’t seen any major reworking in their design and structure since 3rd edition. Some cosmetic changes were made here and there and the addition of Maelstrom Cards, almost universally panned by players, was still only a small change to a design paradigm that is in drastic need of a shift. One of the biggest issues I have dealt with as a judge is slow play. As far as I know that problem is nearly non-existent in Age of Sigmar so hopefully a simpler rules set combined with a complete overhaul of the missions will help 40k with that as well. This is probably what I am most excited about in a new edition of 40k.

With any luck this will be a thing of the past for 40k…

There is a lot to look forward to. A bright new era of 40k is coming on the backs of a new and improved Games Workshop. If you don’t believe me just look at the responses they gave to some of those FAQ questions, they get it. A GW that gets it, meaning the game and the community as a whole, is going to be a boon to the game the likes of which we’ve never seen. Whenever this new era begins rest assured there will be plenty of content flowing out of TFG Radio in the form of blog posts, podcasts, and most importantly (to me at least because it’s what I do) video battle reports!

I personally can’t wait, what are you most looking forward to in the new era of Warhammer 40k? Let me know in the comments!

About SaltyJohn

John has been playing Warhammer 40k since the 3rd edition box set with Space Marines, Dark Eldar, and weird green palm trees were in the set. He is currently a 40k Head Judge for the Las Vegas Open, the largest 40k tournament in the world. An avid board gamer, a huge fan of video games, and a guest spot on Geek and Sundry as a "Historian" during an episode of "Game the Game" round out his geek credentials. You can catch "Salty" John on TFG Radio's Twitch Show, and Podcast, as well as find him streaming video games on Twitch on the TFG Radio Twitch page from time to time.

27 Responses to “What I Want From Newhammer”

Necrons did horribly in tournaments unless they got super lucky with draws or brought a surprise spoiler list that nobody was ready for.

The robots are great against armies that are bad. They get rolled by the top placing armies in an even skill matchup. Makes them frustrating to bring because either you are giving your opponent an unfun game or get kicked in the teeth if you manage to make it to high tables.

Simply in regards to psychic phase: I’d hate to see it outright removed. I think spells, etc, are essential parts of lore and the game. I’m 100% on board with it being AOS style “everyone has x spell, need a 6+ on two dice” etc phase, and think that in itself would speed things up by miles.

I’m also torn on what I feel I want done with flyers, etc. “Fly” in AOS just makes you able to move over things, more or less, but 40k has very many different flying units, so I’m curious how they’ll handle it.

1- overhaul allies to have a more minimized impact. Your vote army should be your core!
2- get rid of pre and in game overhead… no more generating psychic abilities in game, or eveven before game. You come with the list you come with!
3- no more tanking wounds
4- flyers are no longer playing a different game

1. Look Out Sirs should be limited to a single time. If even used at all. Partially because the idea of soldiers jumping from all around the area to try and take hits is ridiculous (they’d be too busy fighting their own battles) and mostly because it really slows down the game when people LoS every single dang hit. It’s annoying. One makes some sense. An alert soldier jumps in to block a fatal blow. Beyond that it devolves into repetitive nonsense.

2. Grav Amps and Monstrous Creatures. Grav-cannons with Grav Amps are currently too good. High rate of fire which does solid damage to most everything except T-shirt saves. But at the same time, MCs and GCs have to be more susceptible to damage from a wide variety of weapons. Otherwise, good luck taking out 3 Riptides, a Y’vahra or two, and a Stormsurge with your meltas and plasma guns. My suggestion would be to cut down Grav-cannon’s rate of fire a bit while boosting other weapons’ effectiveness. I think it’d be great if the humble heavy bolter became a bit more of an all-arounder (although not a MC killer in-and-of itself).

3. Put a 3+ cap on Feel No Pain and Invulnerable Saves. We all love having nigh-unkillable models but when you’re facing 2+ Armor, 2++ Invul, and 2 or 3+++ FNP with re-rolls to potentially all of that . . . the fun is gone and it drags out the game because stuff refuses to die. Also, maybe some special weapons can ignore FNP or Invuls (aside from D weapons).

Look out sir: when a wound would be allocated to a character, the controlling player may elect to ‘Look out sir’ and allocate wounds to the sequentially closest non-character models in the unit within 6″ of the character. When no such non-character models are in range after electing to ‘Look out sir’, the wounds are allocated against the character. Wounds may not be allocated from one character to another character. Once elected, all wounds must be allocated from the character to eligible non-character models for the remainder of the current shooting phase.

Just played a 2,000pt game against my friend yesterday (he played Ynnari with a lot of wraith units plus psykers). I played Tzeentch daemons with the Blue Horror formation + Kairos & LoC + heralds anarchic + screamer formation. Granted I haven’t played these units a ton (just getting started with them), but the beginning of the game took so long rolling for about 30 psychic powers then the psychic phase hit and between the two of us it took so long rolling everything out each turn and summoning and all that. Plus deny the witch is plain stupid when every unit has a psyker in it and each side has 15+ psychic dice… it’s just pick 2 powers you want and they don’t go off.

Flyers: go back to acting like fast skimmers
Jink: give a BS penalty to units shooting at it instead of a cover save
Psychic Powers: Go back to 5th ed style choose your power during army creation. None of this roll on a table at the start of the game bull.
Assault: allow it from reserves or out of a stationary transport.
Superheavies and Gargantuans: Out. back to apoc only for you.
Formations: Make them require additional points over the unit costs to account for the bonuses they give
Vehicle damage: glance rolls on the damage chart, pen rolls and removes a hull point
Grav: get rid of grav amps altogether, change grav cannons to heavy weapons
Str D: Replace it with str10 ap1 d3 wounds/hullpoints

With the right new rules, there won’t really be a need to remove Superheavies and Gargantuans. In my view, this is the best part about Age of Sigmar, the really big creatures fit into the game and really feel epic while still allowing you to play the same game.

With Imperial Knights as a listed faction, we already know they won’t be getting rid of the most common Superheavy at least.

I’d like to see them alter Maelstrom a bit. My opinion:
Pros
-Scoring every turn prioritizes control throughout the game, not last second grabs.
-More objectives means movement and a balance of units is a plus. Not just “I sit my 500pt gargantuan creature on the point and laugh.”
-The variable points adds an element of adaptation to the battle

Cons
-Mainly just one: card system needs to be improved. A little bit of adaptation is good. Turning the game into poker where you hope you draw easy objectives and your opponent draws terrible ones is no fun. The winner shouldn’t be decided by who draws “hold this objective you’re already standing on” vs “kill a flyer even though your opponent doesn’t have any.”

I liked the idea of having faction specific maelstorms, but have not seen it implemented very well. I would love to see that… I mean a Tyranid force, a Tau force, and a Chaos Space marine force may have totally different objectives in a battle, it would be fun to see that.

Grand alliance style/cost books for the armies that include FW rules. , I’m sick of having to buy expensive books from England for one or two units rules. If you don’t have the book when you order a big model, it almost felt like a tax added to your order

Really, FW should just be better about free dataslates for their models. For many players, FW is just a specialty shop. “I like this one vehicle so I’m going to add it to my army.” Great… I shouldn’t have to buy an $80 imperial army book just to use it.

Given the huge number of FW models and the relatively low number of players who use them – I think the free dataslates is a much better idea than adding every single one to a grand alliance book.

I personally hope they don’t go down the AoS route, at least for To Hit (melee) and To Wound rolls. There’s nothing complicated about the to hit and to wound charts and literally anyone should be capable of dealing with them quickly and easily. The target should matter when determining whether you can hit them in melee and whether you can wound them (in melee or shooting). It absolutely should be harder to hit a Bloodthirster in melee than it is to hit a Fire Warrior. It absolutely should be tougher to wound a Wraithknight than it is to wound a Wych.